Inside The Kennel Exclusive: Michael Grant and Gab Williams

We're heading in to the home stretch here at the dog. Only five - yes five! - days left until voting closes.

You know whatour judges think of the books. Now to have an inside look at what the authors are saying. Inky put on his detective cap and had author's spilling their secrets over a few drinks and a pedigree dinner (Country Stew, Inky's favourite).

Gabrielle Williams

My Inky shortlisted title is …‘The Reluctant Hallelujah’.

In one sentence, it is about… 220 pages long. Sorry, bad joke. Awful. Put me away for that one. What was the question again? Oh yeah, so in a sentence, it’s about a girl – Dodie Farnshaw – who’s in year 12 and about to start exams when her parents go missing. So now it’s up to her and some other kids she’s never met before to get the body of Jesus Christ out of her basement and up to Sydney, all the while being chased by bad guys, the police, and one very handsome good guy.

The Reluctant Hallelujah road trip playlist includes … ‘Highway to Hell’ by Acca Dacca; a smattering of White Stripes; a dash of Gorillaz; and a smidge of Sarah Blasko for the more wistful moments.

Housing the body of Christ in your basement is … not to be generally recommended (but hey, someone’s gotta do it).

When involved in a high-adventure, action-packed road trip, one should always …make sure there’s at least one very handsome, kissable guy to accompany them on the journey.

I think the name of a character is … what gets things started. In each of my books, it hasn’t been until I’ve been really happy with my characters’ names that I’ve been able to get well and truly stuck into my writing. And it doesn’t always have to be the main character’s name that sets things off. In ‘The Reluctant Hallelujah’ it was Enron’s name that clicked for me and got me headed in the right direction.

The life of a book is … exactly like one of my kids’. You nurture it, tend to it, develop it, do your best with it each and every day, and then it goes out into the big wide world and you can’t protect it anymore. You just have to hope that all the time you put into it in the early stages will help it live a long, healthy life.

The dog has eaten my manuscript when … he hasn’t been fed for a while. All those juicy adventures and meaty characters really give him something nourishing to chew on.

If I were to write a novel with Inky it would … be set in the State Library of Victoria (which, now that I think about it would have been an excellent place to store the body of Christ!).

If I were to win the Gold Inky Award I would … take everyone who voted for me out for a big slap-up lunch. Seriously.

Michael Grant

In one sentence, it is about… a conspiracy to use nanotechnology to rewire brains and reduce the human race to a happy slavery.

The scariest fact I put in my novel was… the fact that there is a species of mite called demodex that lives in your eyelashes and looks like some unholy union of caterpillar and Hello Kitty.

Nano technology interests me because… I wanted to find something scary that had not been done to death. The tiny monsters “down in the meat” are way scarier than the big ones.

The BZRK movie… Sony has optioned BZRK for Sam Raimi, the guy who gave us EVIL DEAD, XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS and SPIDERMAN.

If I could get rid of one human trait… it would be slowness. I hate slow people in queues, on the road, getting off a plane. I am very impatient and just want the whole world to get out of my way.

The life of a book is... frustrating I would imagine. I assume if a book had eyes those eyes would be on the spine. It would never be able to read itself. It could only come to know itself if it was read aloud. And of course if it had ears to hear the reading.

The dog has eaten my manuscript when… never. No dog would dare. Wait. . . Down boy! Down, I say!

If I were to write a novel with Inky it would have… twenty percent more barking and significantly more tail-wagging. I think for everyone’s sake we’d want to be discreet with descriptions of licking and carpet-scooting.

If I were to win the Silver Inky Award… I would switch to Australian beer.

Hi @ambivalence... you can vote without having read all the titles, if you like (just as long as you have a favourite!). Or, if you've read all the Gold, you can submit a vote just for that category (and then you might *win* BZRK!)

I WANT TO READ BZRK SO SO SO SO MUCH.
I wish I was one of those people who got sent free books to review. Feel free, anyone, to send me BZRK, please. It can be my not-birthday present. I really want to vote, I do I do I do...!